Lewis Suggests The City Take Over Economic Development Instead of Chamber

Dr. Billy Ray Lewis again addressed the Harrison City Council regarding his FOI request to the chamber of commerce.

On Thursday night at the Harrison City Council’s June committee meeting Dr. Billy Ray Lewis spoke to the Finance Committee regarding his continued pursuit of more details about what the Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce has used public tax dollars given to them from the city and county for.

Dr. Lewis has addressed the city council and the Boone County Quorum Court at least twice on this issue and says his group, the Transparency in Government Group, wants to see receipts for what the chamber purchased with the public funds they’ve accepted for the purpose of economic development.

Lewis has previously promised to sue the chamber and its CEO Bob Largent if they don’t provide the information the group seeks.

On Thursday night Lewis made a recommendation to the city council saying, “If this topic is so important, and apparently it is, to invest as much money as the city has done… what our group would suggest that you do as a city council, as a city, is to put this under an umbrella of the city where basically, you can control it.”

Dr. Lewis had reached out the city of Clarksville and learned that they have hired a new city department head to handle economic development and he suggests that Harrison do the same. Later in the meeting Largent addressed the committee and Lewis’s comments saying that while Clarksville has created a new city department to head economic development, the expense is far greater than what the City of Harrison has invested in the Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Largent said he believes the salary of the individual hired by Clarksville is around $70,000 plus benefits. On top of that salary, Clarksville still contributes $100,000 each year to their chamber of commerce.

The total investment the City of Harrison has made in the chamber totals only $140,000 over the last four years.

Coleman Taylor and Beemer discussed this topic on Friday’s edition of Around the Table and played video clips of the committee meeting. You can see their discussion below.